GIFT  OF 
Prof.  Frederic  Bioletti 


••OLELIiAH 

BOOKSEI 


ABRAHAM'S   BOSOM 


BOOKS  BY  THE 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  INNER  SHRINE" 

[BASIL   KING] 

THE  LIFTED   VEIL.     Illustrated. 

THE  SIDE  OF  THE  ANGELS.     Illustrated. 

THE  LETTER  OF  THE  CONTRACT.    Illustrated. 

THE  WAY  HOME.     Illustrated. 

THE  WILD  OLIVE.     Illustrated. 

THE  INNER  SHRINE.     Illustrated. 

THE  STREET  CALLED  STRAIGHT.     Illustrated. 

LET  NOT  MAN  PUT  ASUNDER.     Post  8vo. 

IN  THE  GARDEN  OF  CHARITY.    Post  8vo. 

THE  STEPS  OF  HONOR.     Post  8vo. 

THE  GIANT'S  STRENGTH.    Post  8vo. 

HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  NEW  YORK 
ESTABLISHED  1817 


ABRAHAM'S 
BOSOM 


BY 

BASIL   KING 

Author  of  "THE  HIGH  HEART" 

"THE  INNER  SHRINE"  ETC. 


HARPER  &  BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 

NEW   YORK   AND   LONDON 


GIFT  OF 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 


Copyright,  1918,  by  Harper  &  Brothers 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 

Published  June,  1918 


ABRAHAM'S   BOSOM 


L'dme  ne  pent  se  mouooir,  s'eveilkr,  ouvrir  les  yeux, 
sans  sentir  Dieu.  On  sent  Dieu  avec  I'dme  comme  on  sent 
Vair  avec  le  corps. 

Oserai-je  le  dire?  On  connait  Dieu  facilement  pourvu 
qu'on  ne  se  contraigne  pas  a  le  definir. 

The  soul  cannot  move,  awake  or  open  the  eyes  with 
out  perceiving  God.  We  perceive  God  by  the  soul 
as  we  feel  air  by  the  body. 

Shall  I  dare  to  say  it?  We  know  God  easily  so  long 
as  we  do  not  force  ourselves  to  define  him. 

—JOSEPH  JOUBERT,  1754-1824. 


ABRAHAM'S    BOSOM 


CHAPTER   I 

BECAUSE  he  was  unaccustomed  to  doc 
tors,  and  thought  it  the  right  thing  to 
say,  he  asked  the  physician  to  name  his 
malady  frankly. 

"  I  wish  you'd  tell  me.  I  can  stand  it,  you 
know." 

In  the  bottom  of  his  heart  he  was  sure 
there  was  nothing  to  be  afraid  of.  He  was 
only  sixty,  which  in  the  twentieth  century  is 
young,  and  as  hale  as  he  had  been  at  thirty. 
This  weakness,  this  sudden  pain,  this  sense  of 
suffocation,  from  which  he  had  been  suffering 
for  the  past  few  months,  might  be  the  begin 
ning  of  a  new  phase  in  his  life,  the  period 
commonly  known  as  that  of  breaking  up; 
but  even  so,  he  had  good  years  still  before 
him. 

He  could  wait  for  the  doctor's  answer,  then, 
without  undue  anxiety,  turning  toward  him 
3 

M126815 


;:  :/:()  ABttAHAM'S  BOSOM 

an  ascetic,  clean-cut  profile  stamped  with  a 
lifetime  of  high,  kind,  scholarly  medita 
tions. 

The  doctor  tilted  slightly  backward  in  his 
chair,  fitting  his  finger  tips  together,  before 
he  spoke.  Any  telltale  expression  there 
might  have  been  in  his  face  was  concealed 
by  a  scraggy  beard  and  mustache  that  grew 
right  up  to  the  edges  of  a  lipless  mouth. 

"It's  what  is  called  Hutchinson's  disease," 
he  said  at  last.  "I've  known  a  few  cases  of 
it;  but  it's  rather  rare" — he  added,  as  if  re 
luctantly — "and  obscure." 

"But  I've  heard  of  it.  Wasn't  it,"  the 
patient  continued,  after  a  second's  thinking, 
"the  trouble  with  poor  Ned  Angel?" 

"You  mean  the  organist  chap  at  Saint 
Thomas's — the  near-sighted  fellow  with  a 
limp — the  one  you  had  to  get  rid  of?" 

A  sharp  hectic  spot  like  a  splash  of  red 
paint  came  out  in  each  of  the  clergyman's 
wax-like  cheeks. 

"That's  the  man.  It — it  carried  him  off 
in  less  than  two  months." 

The  doctor  was  used  to  embarrassing 
situations. 

"I  believe  it  did,"  he  responded  in  a  tone 
that  seemed  to  make  the  fact  of  slight  im 
portance.  "I  remember  hearing  that  he  put 


ABRAHAM'S   BOSOM 

up  no  fight;  that  he  didn't  want  to  live. 
You  knew  him  better  than  I  did — " 

"I  knew  him  very  well  indeed;  and  a 
sweeter  soul  never  breathed. ' '  There  seemed 
to  be  something  that  the  rector  of  St.Thomas's 
was  anxious  to  explain.  "He'd  played  our 
organ  and  trained  our  choir  for  forty  years — 
ever  since  the  church  was  a  little  mission 
chapel,  none  too  sure  of  its  future.  He  was 
a  chemist  by  profession,  you  may  remember, 
and  he'd  done  our  work  entirely  without  sal 
ary.  But  you  know  what  American  churches 
are.  Once  we'd  become  big  and  wealthy 
we  had  to  have  the  best  music  money  could 
provide;  and  so  poor  Angel  had  to  go." 

"And  it  killed  him." 

"No;  I  don't  think  so.  People  say  it  did; 
but  I  don't  agree  with  them.  It  nearly 
killed  me  when  I  had  to  tell  him — the  parish 
put  it  up  to  me;  but  as  for  him  he  simply 
seemed  to  feel  that  his  life  on  earth  was  over. 
He  had  fought  his  good  fight  and  finished  his 
course.  That  was  the  impression  he  made  on 
me.  He  wasn't  like  a  man  who  has  been 
killed;  he  was  rather  like  one  who  has  been 
translated.  He  just — was  not.  All  the  same 
it's  been  a  good  deal  on  my  mind;  on  my 
conscience,  I  might  say — " 

But  the  doctor  had  other  patients  in  the 
5 


ABRAHAM'S   BOSOM 

waiting-room  and  was  obliged  to  think  of 
them. 

11  Quite  so;  and,  therefore,  you  see  that  in 
his  case  there  were  contributing  causes; 
whereas  in  yours — " 

It  was  the  patient's  turn  to  interrupt : 

"And  for  this  Hutchinson's  disease,  is 
there  any  cure?" 

In  spite  of  his  efforts  to  seem  casual  the 
doctor's  voice  fell. 

"None  that  science  knows  of — as  yet. 
But  able  men  have  taken  it  up  as  a  spe 
cialty—  " 

' '  And  its  progress  is  generally  rapid,  isn't  it?*' 

"Since  you  ask  the  question,  I  can  only 
say,  yes  —  generally.  That  doesn't  mean, 
however,  that  in  the  case  of  a  man  of  tem 
perate  life,  like  you — " 

But  Berkeley  Noone  had  heard  enough. 
He  listened  to  what  the  doctor  had  to  say  in 
the  way  of  advice;  he  promised  to  carry  out 
all  orders;  but  he  was  sure  his  death  sentence 
had  been  pronounced.  He  took  it  as  most  men 
take  death  sentences — calmly  as  far  as  the 
eye  could  see,  but  with  an  inner  sense  of  being 
stunned.  Getting  himself  out  of  the  office 
without  betraying  the  fact  that  he  knew  he 
had  heard  his  doom  he  roamed  the  city 
aimlessly. 

6 


ABRAHAM'S   BOSOM 

By  degrees  he  was  able  to  think,  though 
thinking  led  no  farther  than  to  the  over 
whelming  knowledge  that  he  was  to  be  cut 
off.  Cut  off  in  his  prime  were  the  words  he 
used.  He  had  never  been  more  vigorous 
than  in  the  past  few  years — except  for  those 
occasional  spasms  that  latterly  had  come  and 
gone,  and  left  him  troubled  and  wondering. 
They  had  not,  however,  interfered  with  his 
work,  seeing  that  he  had  preached  and  lect 
ured  and  visited  his  parishioners  and  written 
books  as  usual.  Moreover,  he  had  fulfilled 
his  duties  with  a  power  and  an  authority  for 
which  no  younger  man  would  have  had  the 
experience.  For  another  ten  years,  he  had 
been  reckoning,  he  could  go  on  at  the  same 
pace ;  and  now  the  ten  years  were  not  coming ! 


CHAPTER  II 

VTEVERTHELESS,  when,  a  few  weeks 
+•*  later,  he  was  confined  to  bed  he  began 
to  see  that  his  situation  was  not  without  ad 
vantages  of  which  he  had  taken  no  note  at 
first.  For  one  thing,  he  was  tired.  He  had 
not  recognized  the  fact  till  he  had  kept  his 
room  a  week.  A  day  having  come  when  he 
was  slightly  better,  it  was  suggested  that  he 
might  get  up  and  go  out.  But  he  didn't  want 
to.  He  preferred  to  stay  where  he  was.  His 
lack  of  zest  surprised  him.  It  surprised  him 
still  more  when  he  crept  back  into  bed,  with 
the  conviction  that  it  was  the  spot  he  liked 
best  of  all.  Bed  by  day  had  always  fired  him 
with  impatience.  Now  it  seemed  to  him  a 
haven,  delicious  and  remote.  The  world 
might  wag  in  the  distance,  but  the  wagging 
had  nothing  to  do  with  him. 

Nothing  to  do  with  him  when  all  his  work 
ing  life  had  been  spent  at  the  heart  of  its 
energies!  He  had  wrought  and  fought,  and 
struggled  and  suffered,  and  lost  and  won. 
He  had  been  maligned  and  abused  and  mis- 
8 


ABRAHAM'S    BOSOM 

understood,  and  had  found  enemies  where  he 
might  have  looked  for  friends;  and  yet  he 
had  never  been  more  himself  than  when  in 
the  excitement  of  battle.  It  was  the  less 
credible  then  that  the  world  should  have  no 
interest  for  him  any  more,  and  that  he  should 
find  it  a  relief  to  get  away  from  it. 

And  he  should  get  away  from  St.  Thomas's. 
Six  months  ago  he  would  have  been  angry 
with  the  man  who  had  suggested  that  as  a 
possible  form  of  solace ;  and  yet  the  fact  was 
there.  The  parish  had  been  his  life.  He  had 
come  to  it  as  its  first  rector;  his  preaching 
had  built  it  up.  He  had  hardly  ever  taken 
a  holiday  without  regulating  beforehand 
every  service  and  meeting  that  would  take 
place  in  his  absence.  He  had  hardly  ever 
come  back  without  the  sense  of  being  just 
where  he  belonged.  And  now  he  should  never 
again  go  into  the  pulpit  and  instruct  other 
men  as  to  what  they  ought  to  do!  Never 
again  should  he  make  his  round  of  calls  on 
kindly,  carping  parishioners!  He  should  not 
have  to  take  the  respectful  admonitions  of  his 
vestry  any  more,  or  try  to  appease  its  mem 
bers,  or  defend  himself  for  writing  books. 
All  that  was  over.  He  sank  back  among  his 
pillows,  with  a  sigh  of  comfort.  He  should 

get  away  from  it. 

9 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

Later  he  made  a  discovery  that  astonished 
him  and  gave  him  pain.  He  should  get  away 
from  his  wife. 

A  little  thing  revealed  this,  too,  as  an  es 
cape.  Emily  had  bustled  into  his  bedroom 
with  a  cup  of  broth.  She  liked  plenty  of  salt 
in  her  broth,  and  he  very  little;  but  it  was 
one  of  those  small  differences  of  taste  to  which 
she  had  never  become  reconciled.  It  fretted 
her  that  he  shouldn't  know  when  things  were 
as  they  ought  to  be;  and,  not  to  fret  her,  he 
had  during  two-and-thirty  years  submitted 
to  her  wishes  docilely.  But  to-day  he  felt 
privileged  to  put  up  a  mild  protest. 

"  Isn't  there  too  much  salt  in  this  broth, 
dear?" 

Standing  by  his  bedside,  she  took  the  cup 
and  tasted  it. 

"No,  darling.  It's  very  good  indeed.  I 
seasoned  it  myself.  It's  exactly  right." 

"Thanks,  dearest."  As  broth  exactly  right, 
he  forced  himself  to  swallow  it. 

Having  relieved  him  of  the  cup  she  went  on 
to  make  him  comfortable.  He  had  been 
comfortable  as  it  was,  but  she  didn't  believe 
it.  She  had  always  declared  that  if  he  would 
only  rest  as  she  did  he  would  get  more  repose. 
She  proceeded,  therefore,  to  show  him  how, 
as  she  had  shown  him  how  perhaps  a  million 

10 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

times  in  the  course  of  their  life  together. 
Patiently  he  allowed  himself  to  be  pulled  and 
shunted  while  the  sheets  were  straightened 
and  the  pillows  smoothed,  and  he  composed 
his  figure  to  the  lines  that  suited  hers. 
Patiently,  too,  he  pretended  to  be  more  at 
ease  than  he  had  been  before,  though  he  was 
saying  to  himself,  with  some  eagerness,  that 
death  would  take  him  away  from  this  worry 
ing  wifely  affection  which  never  let  him 
alone* 

The  anticipation  gave  him  pangs  of  con 
science,  since  they  had  lived  together  with 
quite  the  average  degree  of  happiness,  and 
he  loved  her  with  a  deep  and  quiet  love. 
Moreover,  in  spite  of  her  double  chin  and 
her  increase  in  waist-line,  he  had  never 
ceased  to  see  in  her  the  timid,  wild-eyed 
nymph  of  a  thing  who  had  incarnated  for 
him  all  that  was  poetry  in  the  year  when  he 
was  twenty-eight.  Not  till  after  their  first 
child  was  born  had  her  bird-like  shyness 
yielded  by  degrees  to  an  assumption  of 
authority,  which  in  the  end  became  a  sort 
of  lordship  over  him.  By  the  time  they  had 
had  three  children  she  had  formed  the  habit 
of  correcting  the  thousand  and  one  small 
faults  into  which  he  fell  without  knowing  it. 

The  way  he  ate;  the  way  he  sat  at  table;  the 
11 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

way  he  held  a  bock;  the  way  he  coughed;  the 
way  he  yawned;  the  way  he  shook  hands; 
the  way  he  pronounced  certain  of  his  words; 
the  way  he  gave  out  his  notices  in  church; 
the  way  he  allowed  other  men  to  walk  over 
him — these,  with  a  hundred  similar  details, 
had  become  the  sphere  of  her  loving,  con 
jugal  discipline. 

For  more  than  twenty  of  their  thirty-two 
years  of  married  life  her  comments  on  his 
oddities  had  trickled  on  like  a  stream  that 
flows  and  stops,  and  stops  and  flows,  and 
never  dries  up  entirely.  He  had  borne  it  all 
because  she  could  at  any  time,  even  now, 
throw  him  that  look  of  the  startled  dryad 
which  touched  some  hidden  spring  in  him; 
but  the  moment  had  arrived  when  he  couldn't 
help  saying  that  he  would  be  glad  to  get 
away  from  it. 

And  then,  as  his  children  roamed  back 
one  by  one  to  see  him  die,  it  came  to  him  that 
he  should  be  glad  to  get  away  from  them. 
That  was  a  discovery  which  shocked  him  to 
the  core.  His  children  had  been  part  of  him 
self.  They  had  been  good  children,  too — on 
the  whole.  There  were  five  of  them,  and 
their  ages  ran  from  thirty-one  to  twenty-two. 
From  a  worldly  point  of  view  they  were  all 
doing  reasonably  well — and  yet  they  were 

12 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

doing  reasonably  well  in  ways  that  never 
turned  to  him  for  sympathy. 

Berkeley,  Junior,  was  a  broker  hi  New 
York,  and  lived  on  Staten  Island  with  a  wife 
and  a  baby  son.  He  seldom  came  home  now, 
except  for  a  wedding  or  a  funeral.  The 
father  had  had  hopes  for  something  more 
brilliant  for  the  lad  in  the  year  when  he  was 
born;  hopes  that  had  grown  with  the  boy's 
growth  and  followed  him  to  school  and 
college,  only  to  fade  when  the  young  man 
struck  out  for  himself. 

Then  there  was  Constantia,  who  had  been 
such  a  wonderful  little  girl.  Beauty  and 
cleverness  had  been  her  portion,  with  a 
command  of  the  piano  that  had  promised 
the  career  of  a  Carreno.  But  she  had  married 
an  agnostic  professor  in  a  Western  state 
university,  where,  owing  to  the  necessity  of 
doing  her  own  housework,  she  had  given  up 
her  music,  while  in  submission  to  her  hus 
band's  teaching  she  refused  to  let  her  children 
be  baptized. 

The  twins,  Herbert  and  Philip,  were  in 
modern  phases  of  business,  the  one  selling 
agricultural  implements  in  Texas,  the  other 
automobiles  in  Detroit.  There  was  nothing 
a  father  could  complain  of  in  this.  Berkeley 

Noone  would  not  have  so  much  as  sighed  if  it 
13 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

hadn't  been  for  his  hopes.  They  had  been 
such  angelic  little  boys,  and  so  quick  at 
everything!  He  had  placed  them  hi  the 
ideal  walks  of  life;  one  perhaps  as  a  his 
torian  or  philosopher,  and  one — one  at  least 
— as  a  clergyman.  But  they  had  preferred 
the  great  career  of  making  money,  and,  like 
their  elder  brother,  rarely  came  home  now 
adays. 

Beatrice  was  the  enigmatic  one.  Though 
but  twenty-two,  she  was  restless  and  eager, 
and  sometimes  unhappy  in  ways  as  to  which 
she  never  gave  her  mother  or  himself  her 
confidence.  Nominally  living  at  home,  she 
was  oftener  than  not  away  on  the  pretext  of 
studying  art.  All  he  knew  of  her  with  cer 
tainty  was  that  she  moved  in  the  advanced 
brigade  of  the  woman 's  agitation,  that  she 
had  extraordinary  friendships  with  young 
men,  and  that  she  smoked  a  great  many 
cigarettes.  Affectionate  enough,  but  wilful 
and  mysterious,  it  pleased  her  to  keep  her 
parents  in  ignorance  as  to  her  doings,  once 
she  had  closed  their  door  behind  her. 

If  his  offspring  had  disappointed  him  it 
was  not  precisely  disappointment  that  had 
worn  him  out;  it  was  a  sense  of  the  futility 
of  bringing  children  into  the  world  at  all. 
He  had  put  his  strength  into  theirs  and  they 

14 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

hadn't  needed  it.  So  long  as  they  had  let 
him,  he  had  lived  their  lives  with  them,  and 
shared  their  struggles,  and  suffered  their 
pains;  he  had  yearned  and  longed  and  looked 
forward  for  them  more  than  they  had  ever 
yearned  and  longed  and  looked  forward  for 
themselves.  He  had  seen  them  all  as  children 
of  destiny!  Whatever  they  might  become, 
they  could  never  be  commonplace!  Even 
when  they  had  crosses  to  carry  and  cares  to 
endure,  their  places  in  life  could  never  be 
anything  but  high  ones!  And  now — now 
they  were  all  there,  each  absorbed  in  what 
seemed  to  him  a  merely  starveling  way  of 
life,  waiting  for  him  to  die  in  order  that  they 
might  return  to  it  as  quickly  as  steam  and 
electricity  could  carry  them.  Vitally  and 
essentially  he  was  no  more  to  them  than  the 
parent  bird  to  the  robin  that  has  mated  and 
made  its  nest  in  another  tree. 

So  he  gave  up  his  yearnings  over  them. 
As  they  came  and  went  in  his  room  he 
watched  them  with  the  same  detachment  they 
betrayed  toward  him.  He  would  have  said 
he  had  outlived  them  had  he  ventured  to 
use  a  word  in  which  life  was  a  compound. 
Certainly  there  was  a  sense  in  which  he  had 
outgrown  them.  He  had  left  them  behind  in 
some  race  that  had  more  than  death  for  its 

15 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

goal.  The  effort  to  keep  going  back  to  them, 
going  back  and  pulling  them  along,  was  too 
wearisome  to  keep  up. 

In  the  place  for  which  he  was  bound  he 
would  get  rest  from  the  cravings  on  their 
behalf  that  had  haunted  him  ever  since  the 
minute  when  he  knew  the  first  of  them  was  to 
be  born. 


CHAPTER  III 

AND  yet  his  thoughts  were  not  all  of  rest. 
«f*  Far  from  it!  He  was  of  Puritan  stock 
and  traditions.  Though  in  later  life  he  had 
abandoned  that  belief  in  an  angry  God  in 
which  his  childhood  had  been  nursed,  some 
thing  of  the  early  teaching  clung  to  him. 
Won  as  he  had  been  by  the  modern  doctrine 
of  eternal  hope,  he  still  lapsed  into  moments 
when  death  became  to  him,  in  biblical  phrase, 
"a  certain  fearful  looking  for  of  judgment." 
He  had  been  a  great  sinner.  Though  no 
one  knew  it  but  himself,  a  great  sinner  he 
had  been.  He  had  preached  to  others,  and 
warned  them,  and  consoled  them,  and  pre 
pared  them  for  death,  and  had  passed  as  a 
man  of  God;  and  no  one  suspected  the  depths 
of  evil  that  lay  beneath  the  dignified  surface 
of  his  life.  There  had  been  wicked  thoughts, 
hasty  words,  carnal  desires,  envies,  antip 
athies,  doubtings,  angers,  rashnesses,  and 
everything  else  that  makes  a  man's  inner  life 
something  which  he  hides  from  others,  and 
that  often  appals  himself. 

17 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

This  was  true  even  of  his  later  life.  And 
when  he  went  back  to  his  earlier  manhood, 
to  his  youth,  to  his  boyhood,  to  his  child 
hood — 

There  were  nights  when  the  cold  sweat 
broke  out  all  over  him  as  he  thought  of  these 
things.  In  a  few  days  now — in  a  fortnight 
or  three  weeks  at  furthest — he  would  have 
to  give  an  account  of  all  that  was  recorded 
against  him.  When  the  Throne  was  set  and 
the  Books  were  opened  he  might  be  blasted 
forever  under  the  Judge's  keen,  all-seeing 
glance.  That  glance  itself  would  be  the 
worm  that  dieth  not  and  the  fire  that  never 
should  be  quenched. 

But  he  had  other  moments  of  exalted  and 
somewhat  desperate  trust  in  a  redeeming  love 
that  had  paid  the  penalty  for  these  offenses 
and  won  their  forgiveness.  He  was  not  very 
clear  as  to  how  this  vicarious  atonement 
could  ever  have  been  made;  but  since  the 
thought  of  it  was  all  there  was  to  cling  to  he 
did  his  best  to  cling  to  it.  He  repeated 
hymns  and  prayers  and  passages  of  Scripture 
as  he  had  repeated  them  at  the  bedsides  of 
men  and  women  who  had  been  facing  the 
crisis  he  was  facing  in  his  turn.  He  told  him 
self  he  was  comforted;  he  almost  persuaded 
himself  that  he  was;  and  yet  at  the  back  of 

18 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

his  mind  there  lay  the  suspicion  of  a  mere 
self-administered  spiritual  drug. 

So  day  by  day  he  receded  from  the  world, 
from  his  work,  from  his  wife  from  his  family 
and  from  all  that  had  formed  his  interests, 
seemingly  making  that  peaceful  end  for  which 
those  who  cared  for  him  watched  and  prayed. 
But  inwardly  he  was  like  a  man  sweating 
blood.  Death  was  abhorrent  to  him.  There 
were  minutes  when  he  could  have  doubted 
the  goodness  of  a  God  who  had  foreordained 
it.  What  was  the  good  of  birth  and  effort  and 
love  if  they  could  only  end  in  this?  There  was 
the  great  question  with  which  he  wrestled  as 
he  had  never  wrestled  with  anything  before. 

He  reminded  himself  of  One  who  said, 
"If  a  man  keep  my  saying,  he  shall  never 
taste  of  death."  But  for  sinners  like  himself 
there  was  nothing  in  the  promise,  or  in  any 
promise  similar;  and  there  never  had  been. 
He  should  have  to  taste  of  death.  He  should 
have  to  eat  its  last  morsel  and  drink  its  last 
dregs.  Hutchinson's  disease  had  got  him  by 
as  many  tentacles  as  the  octopus  gets  its 
victim.  It  was  swathing  him  round,  and 
dragging  him  down,  and  darkening  his  in 
telligence.  He  was  going  the  way  of  all  flesh. 
His  wife  would  come  after  him,  and  their 
children  after  them,  and  their  children  after 

19 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

them;  and  so  on  till  the  globe  collapsed. 
What  was  the  good  of  it?  What  was  the  good 
of  it?  Why  could  not  the  All-intelligent,  if 
there  was  such  a  Being,  have  given  man  a  life 
that  wouldn't  have  to  come  to  this  miserable 
wreckage? 

These  were  his  thoughts  as  he  waited  for 
his  last  agony.  That  it  was  expected  soon  he 
judged  by  the  way  in  which  the  doctor  shook 
his  head,  and  his  wife  relaxed  her  bustling  to 
watch  him  with  tearful  eyes.  Two  or  three 
times  a  day  the  boys  tiptoed  into  the  room, 
gazed  at  him  with  solemn,  sympathetic  faces, 
and  tiptoed  out  again.  Beatrice  cried  in 
corners,  and  Constantia  helped  the  nurse 
when  her  mother  was  obliged  to  rest. 

Practically  they  had  taken  their  farewell 
of  him;  but  there  came  a  day  when  they  did 
it  in  actual  fact.  It  was  a  bright  summer 
afternoon,  with  the  sunshine  streaming  in  at 
all  the  windows.  The  nurse  had  given  the 
sign  by  summoning  Emily;  Emily  had  called 
Constantia;  and  Constantia,  Beatrice  and 
the  boys.  They  all  kissed  him,  and  stood  or 
sat  about  the  bed,  his  wife  holding  one  hand 
and  Phil  the  other.  He  hardly  knew  by  what 
signs  they  judged,  since  he  felt  but  little 
weaker  than  on  other  days  and  not  much 

more  pain.    They  seemed  to  know,  however, 
20 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

that  the  time  had  come,  and  to  treat  him  a 
little  like  the  jailers  and  sheriffs  who  notify 
the  condemned  that  the  supreme  minute  is 
approaching. 

He  could  only  let  them  do  as  they  thought 
right,  fixing  his  eyes  somewhat  vacantly  on  a 
picture  which  had  long  hung  at  the  foot  of 
his  bed,  and  which  was  a  favorite.  It  was  a 
steel  engraving  of  Holman  Hunt's  "  Light 
of  the  World, "  purchased  on  his  honeymoon, 
after  Emily  and  he  had  seen  the  original  at 
Oxford.  Neither  of  them  had  been  expert 
critics  of  painting,  but  they  had  stood  to 
gether  and  spoken  of  the  light  thrown  out 
by  the  lantern  in  the  Saviour's  hand  as  one 
of  the  most  beautiful  things  they  knew.  For 
the  figure  and  face  they  had  not  cared.  They 
had  cared  for  nothing  but  that  light.  For 
him,  if  not  for  her,  it  had  remained  a  lasting 
memory.  He  had  been  able  to  see  it  in  the 
steel  engraving's  black-and-white  splotch 
during  all  the  intervening  years,  and  to 
identify  its  glow  with  England  and  Oxford, 
and  young  love  and  his  soul's  striving. 

And  he  saw  it  now.  It  was  odd — but  he 
did.  It  positively  burned  in  the  lantern.  He 
was  glad  of  the  illusion,  because  it  helped 
him,  he  thought,  to  get  nearer  the  last  minute 

without  knowing   it.     It  would   come,   of 
21 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

course — that  last  minute.  There  would  be 
an  instant,  perhaps  in  half  an  hour,  when  his 
soul  would  tear  its  way  out  of  his  body  and 
he  should  be  thrust,  a  naked,  quivering  bundle 
of  spiritual  nerves,  before  angels  and  arch 
angels  and  principalities  and  powers,  and  a 
God  whose  first  question  would  be  that 
which  was  put  to  Cain:  "What  hast  thou 
done?"  If,  then,  he  was  not  to  hear  the 
sentence,  "  Depart  from  me,  ye  cursed,  into 
everlasting  fire,"  it  would  only  be  because 
there  had  been  a  cross  on  Calvary.  Mentally 
he  clung  to  that  cross  as  he  watched  the  light 
grow  brighter  and  brighter  in  the  lantern  in 
the  print. 

He  was  dimly  conscious  of  a  man  he  knew, 
a  brother  clergyman  who  had  administered 
the  last  sacrament  to  him  on  the  previous 
day,  coming  into  the  room  and  kneeling  at 
his  bedside.  Dimly  he  was  conscious  that  the 
family  knelt  down  and  that  there  were 
prayers.  They  were  prayers  that  came  to 
him  as  if  from  such  a  long  way  off  as  hardly 
to  reach  his  ear.  When  the  murmur  of  "Our 
Father"  traveled  up  it  was  like  a  rumble 
from  a  world  below  him.  He  tried  to  join  in  it; 
but  he  couldn't  keep  his  mind  on  the  phrases. 
He  couldn't  keep  his  mind  on  the  phrases 
because  of  the  shining  of  the  light.  It  was 

22 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

becoming  an  amazing  light,  bursting  the 
limits  of  the  lantern,  making  glory  of  the 
figure,  making  beauty  of  the  face,  turning 
the  crown  of  thorns  into  jewels,  and  throwing 
a  sunshine  brighter  than  the  sunshine  on  the 
wall. 

It  was  a  pleasant  illusion,  he  told  himself— 
the  action  of  the  self-administered  spiritual 
drug  he  distrusted  and  yet  relied  on.  At  any 
rate,  it  made  things  easier.  It  gave  him  a 
sense  of  relief  that  might  even  be  called 
physical.  He  noticed,  all  at  once,  that  his 
pain  was  gone.  That,  of  course,  was  illusion, 
too — probably  no  more  than  the  end  of  his 
power  to  feel;  but  the  iron  claws  that  Hutch- 
inson's  disease  had  dug  into  his  flesh  had 
loosened  their  grip.  He  was  breathing  easily 
for  the  first  time  in  months.  Had  he  not 
known  that  he  couldn't  really  be  better,  he 
would  have  been  tempted  to  say  he  was  well. 
He  would  have  been  able  to  get  up ;  only  that 
it  was  so  delicious  to  lie  there  seemingly  free — 
he  reminded  himself  that  it  could  be  no  more 
than  seemingly  free — from  torture,  and  with 
his  mental  burdens  gone.  What  had  dis 
pelled  them  he  didn't  know;  but  it  was  a  fact 
that  they  had  rolled  away. 


CHAPTER  IV 

is  rest!"  he  murmured  to  himself. 
A  voice  answered  him  promptly : 

"Yes;  it's  rest,  because  you're  now  be 
ginning  to  realize  as  a  fact  what  you've 
always  taken  as  no  more  than  a  lovely 
spiritual  image — that  underneath  are  the 
everlasting  arms." 

He  was  not  surprised  at  the  voice.  Familiar 
with  the  fancies  of  the  dying,  he  knew  to 
what  to  ascribe  it.  He  reminded  himself 
that  he  must  hold  on  to  his  senses  till  he  was 
deprived  of  them,  and  so  made  no  effort  to 
reply. 

Instead,  he  watched  the  spreading  of  the 
light  that  flooded  the  room  and  glorified  its 
occupants.  Wife  and  son  and  daughter  were 
all  beside  him;  but  in  that  light  they  were 
different.  They  were  also  doing  things  he 
didn't  clearly  understand.  All  he  knew  was 
that  he  felt  toward  them  an  extraordinary 
tenderness,  and  that  something  similar  came 
from  them  to  him. 

"I  suppose  this  must  be  dying,"  he  said  to 

24 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

himself,  as  he  noticed  that  the  new  day  had 
blotted  out  the  sunlight. 

"No,"  came  the  voice  again;  "because 
there's  no  such  thing  as  death." 

To  Berkeley  Noone,  this  was  the  real 
point  at  issue.  It  was  worth  taking  up,  even 
if  only  in  delirium. 

"Of  course  there's  no  such  thing  as  death 
from  the  spiritual  point  of  view— 

"And  there  is  no  other." 

"I  know  there'll  be  no  other  in  the  next 
life;  but—7 

"But  there's  no  next  life.  There's  only 
one  life." 

"In  a  sense — yes,"  he  admitted,  not  with 
out  a  shadow  of  impatience.  ' '  And  yet  I'm — 
I'm  dying." 

"No;  you're  only  waking — waking  from 
the  deep  sleep  that  fell  on  Adam  and  on  all 
Adam's  so-called  children." 

He  fixed  his  attention  on  but  one  of  these 
points: 

"Why  do  you  say  so-called?" 

"Because  they're  only  the  offspring  of  a 
dream." 

"I  don't  see  how  they  can  be  the  offspring 
of  a  dream  when  a  dream  is  nothing — 

"Pardon  me;    a   dream   is    something — 

while  it  lasts.    It's  only  seen  to  be  nothing 
25 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

when  we  wake  and  know  it  for  what  it 


was." 


"And  do  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  all  my 
past  life  has  had  no  reality?" 

"Not  all  your  past  life;  only  whatever  in  it 
may  have  been  evil,  mortal,  or  unhappy. 
Once  we've  thrown  off  that,  we  come  to  our 
genuine  birthright.  You're  probably  able 
to  prove  it  by  some  heightening  of  your 
faculties  already." 

"Do  you  mean  the  light  I  see  from  the 
picture  at  the  foot  of  my  bed?" 

There  was  genuine  curiosity  in  the  tone: 

"Won't  you  tell  me  what  it's  like?" 

He  complied  with  this  request.  The  voice 
continued: 

"That's  very  like  my  own  experience — 
only  that  in  my  case  the  increase  of  percep 
tion  was  in  the  way  of  what  our  mortal 
senses  call  sound.  You  were  with  me  at  the 
time,  and  may  remember." 

"I?" 

"According  to  the  reckoning  of  time  it  was 
in  June  over  a  year  ago.  The  day  was  close 
and  the  windows  were  open.  The  noises  of 
the  street  came  up  to  my  room  rather  dis 
tressingly.  I  tried  not  to  listen  to  them  or  be 
annoyed  by  them;  but  it  was  beyond  me. 
Then  by  degrees  all  such  noises  merged  into 

26 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

something  else — into  music — into  floods  of 
music — into  floods  on  floods  of  music;  and  I 
was  made  to  understand  that  in  the  Reality 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  ugly  sound;  that  it's 
only  the  senses  of  the  Man  of  Dust  that  de 
grade  to  harshness  and  discord  that  which  in 
itself  is  harmonious  and  lovely." 

With  some  surprise  Berkeley  Noone  be 
came  aware  that  behind  the  voice  there  was  a 
personality.  Timidly  he  asked  the  question: 

"Aren't  you  Angel?'* 

The  answer  came  with  what  he  would 
hitherto  have  called  a  smile.  It  struck  him 
now  as  an  effulgence : 

"The  name  will  do  for  the  present.  You 
and  I  are  still  within  the  sphere  of  mortal 
thought — you,  of  course,  more  than  I;  but 
we  shall  work  away  from  it." 

Among  the  questions  Berkeley  Noone  was 
eager  to  ask,  one  presented  itself  as  most 
pressing  to  his  curiosity.  It  stood  for  years  of 
speculation,  wonder,  and  hope. 

"Then,"  he  began,  still  timidly,  "you're 
really  able  to  come  back  and  be  with  us — 
here  in  my  room?" 

There  was  a  repetition  of  what  seemed  to 
him  an  effulgence. 

"You  must  remember  that  what  you  call 

your  room  is  only  a  phase  of  mortal  con- 
27 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

sciousness.  It's  one  of  the  expedients  by 
which  the  Man  of  Dust  makes  use  of  his 
limitations.  Being  finite  himself  he  can  think 
only  in  terms  of  spaces  and  walls  and  tables 
and  chairs,  which  he  sees  to  stand  for  other 
ideas  as  soon  as  he  begins  to  see  at  all.  What 
you've  said  of  the  new  light  makes  a  very 
good  illustration." 

"But  that's  only  the  illusion  of  a  dying 
man." 

"It's  more  than  that.  It's  the  point  by 
which  your  waking  thought  catches  on  to 
actuality.  What  you've  seen  in  your  picture 
hitherto  has  not  been  what  was  there;  it  was 
what  the  Man  of  Dust  put  there  as  the  best 
he  could  do.  It's  been  a  sheet  of  white  paper 
with  some  printing  in  black;  but  it  was  as 
much  as  the  eye  of  Dust  could  see.  Your 
mind,  on  the  other  hand,  got  hold  of  the 
immortal  conception  when  your  mortal  vision 
was  blind  to  it." 

"And  by  the  immortal  conception  you 
mean— 

"We'll  see  that  if  we  go  back  to  your 
picture.  Jesus  spoke  of  Himself  as  the  Light 
of  the  World;  but  He  never  meant  that  He 
was  such  a  light  as  mortal  discovery  draws 
from  electricity.  He  was  a  light  in  con 
sciousness.  As  a  light  in  consciousness  He 

28 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

has  appeared  to  every  generation  since  He 
uttered  the  words.  As  a  light  in  consciousness 
the  artist  saw  Him,  even  though  he  himself 
couldn't  get  beyond  canvas  and  paint.  But 
it  was  the  light  in  consciousness  that  appealed 
to  the  engraver  who  copied  the  work,  and 
through  him  to  you.  The  engraver  was  trying 
to  give  you  some  of  that  light,  and  some  of  it 
you  got.  Now  you're  getting  more  of  it. 
You  haven't  it  all,  by  any  means;  but  you 
can  see  for  yourself  that  you've  made  a 
long  step  forward  from  paper  and  ink. 
You'll  find  that  ever  to  be  making  new  and 
beautiful  discoveries,  and  yet  never  to  ex 
haust  them,  is  one  of  the  joys  of  the  new 
condition.'7 

Berkeley  Noone  returned  to  the  point  he 
had  raised  before. 

"What  interests  me  most  is  that  the  de 
parted  can  really  come  back — 

A  ripple  in  the  effulgence  might  have 
corresponded  to  laughter. 

"But  there  are  no  departed.  Absence  and 
presence  are  states  of  consciousness.  When 
you've  learned  more  of  infinity  you'll  see 
that  it's  so.  I've  been  with  you  ever  since 
what  you  called  my  death,  and  you've  been 
with  me." 

There  was  here  new  matter  for  surprise. 

29 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

"I've  been  with  you?  I  confess  I  don't 
understand — " 

"  You've  been  with  me  in  the  sense  in 
which  a  sleeping  man  is  with  the  waking  one 
who  sits  beside  him  and  watches.  You've 
been  dreaming  of  me — ' 

"I've  been  thinking  of  you — a  good  deal — 
if  that's  what  you  mean." 

"The  expression  will  pass.  And,  as  we've 
been  so  much  in  each  other's  thoughts,  I 
happen  to  be  the  one  with  whom  you  can 
most  easily  come  into  touch,  now  that — " 

"But  I  don't  see  you." 

"You  don't  see  me  partly  because,  if  I  may 
go  on  using  mortal  terms,  you've  never  seen 
anything  hi  your  lif e. ' '  Before  a  protest  could 
be  expressed,  the  voice  continued:  "Though 
the  Man  of  Dust  knows  he  never  sees  any 
thing  farther  off  than  a  reflection  on  the 
retina  of  the  eye  of  Dust — a  reflection  turned 
upside  down,  and  which  he  has  always  to  be 
correcting  mentally  —  he  rarely  stops  to 
consider  that.  He  talks  of  seeing;  he 
persuades  himself  that  he  sees.  Knowing 
that,  strictly  speaking,  you  were  blind,  you, 
nevertheless,  taught  yourself  to  think 
that  a  mere  reflection  was  Edward  Angel, 
when,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  I  was  something 
else." 

30 


I 

ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

"If  you  were  something  else — what  were 
you?" 

"  You'll  know  that  as  you  go  on.  At 
present  let  me  say  that  I  was  not  the  short 
sighted  fellow,  with  a  limp,  who  played  the 
organ  at  Saint  Thomas's.  He  was  the 
illusion  of  the  Man  of  Dust.  He  saw  me,  he 
made  me  see  myself,  with  infirmities  that 
never  existed,  except  in  the  mind  of  Dust." 

"But  even  the  mind  of  Dust,  as  you  call 
it,  can  take  cognizance  of — " 

"It  can  take  cognizance  of  nothing  but  in 
corrupting  facts  and  disfiguring  them.  The 
Man  of  Dust  has  no  faculty  for  under 
standing  things  as  they  are,  otherwise  than 
remotely." 

It  suited  Berkeley  Noone  to  argue,  since 
the  process  dulled  his  anticipation  of  the  last 
event.  It  annoyed  him  somewhat  that  the 
bases  of  existence,  as  he  had  always  con 
ceived  of  it,  should  be  so  radically  called  into 
question.  He  seized,  therefore,  on  what 
seemed  to  him  an  admission. 

"But  remotely,  your  Man  of  Dust  can 
understand?" 

"Doesn't  your  present  experience  answer 
that?  You  have  seen  the  '  Light  of  the 
World'  as  clearly  as  it  could  be  transmitted 
to  you  through  canvas  and  paint  or  through 

31 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

paper  and  ink.   Now  you're  looking  at  it  more 
nearly  as  it  is." 

"But  you  allow  that  I've  seen  it  already 
to  some  degree?" 

"If  you  hadn't  seen  it  already  to  some 
degree  you  wouldn't  be  getting  this  fuller 
conception  of  it  now.  Light  is  one  of  the 
most  radiant  symbols  we  have  for  God;  and 
all  through  the  ages  of  time  men  have  loved 
darkness.  Those  who  love  darkness  must  go 
on  in  darkness  till  they  win  out  to  a  glimmer 
of  perception.  Those  who  love  Light  inherit 
it.  There  are  no  leaps  and  bounds  in  life. 
What  mortals  call  death  takes  them  where  it 
finds  them — as  every  day  and  hour  does  the 
same.  If  through  the  mortal  years  you 
hadn't  been  working  away  from  mortality— 

"I  should  still  be  seeing  in  the  l Light  of 
the  World '  no  more  than  the  engraver  could 
show  me.  I  shouldn't  have  reached  what  you 
call  the  immortal  conception.  I  think  I 
follow  you."  He  harked  back  to  the  con 
sideration  he  thought  not  to  have  been  fully 
met.  "And  yet  I  don't  understand  why,  if 
I  can  see  the  i  Light  of  the  World/  I  can't, 
for  example,  see  you." 

"Aren't  you  still  keeping  too  close  to 
Dust  conceptions?  Aren't  you  forgetting 

that  in  the  Dust  condition  you  were  blind? 
32 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

You  never  got  beyond  your  own  eyeball. 
You  never  really  saw  a  person  or  an  object 
of  any  kind.  Before  you  could  think  so, 
you  had  to  learn  a  whole  series  of  Dust  con 
ventions.  You  had  to  be  taught  shapes  and 
colors  and  distances  and  comparative  sizes, 
and  come  to  an  agreement  with  other  Men 
of  Dust  that  a  bed  was  a  bed  and  a  chair 
was  a  chair,  when  in  reality  you  didn't  know 
what  they  were." 

"I  knew  a  chair  was  a  chair  by  sitting  in 
it,  and  that  a  bed  was  a  bed  by  lying  down." 

"Did  you?    What  are  you  lying  in  now?" 

"Am  I  not  lying  in  my— 

But  the  sentence  died  on  his  lips.  When 
he  sought  for  his  bed,  with  its  pillows  and 
its  sheets,  he  found  something  else. 

"Well?" 

The  word  was  accompanied  by  a  renewal 
of  the  quiver  of  amusement  in  the  radiance. 

Berkeley  Noone  answered  very  slowly: 

"My  bed — seems  to  be — a  wonderful — 
comforting  —  sustaining  —  knowledge  that — 
that  I  am — supported." 

"And  isn't  that  what  I  told  you  at  first — 
that  it's  positively  a  fact  that  underneath 
are  the  everlasting  arms?  The  Man  of 
Dust  takes  these  eternal  truths  and  makes 

them  temporary,  material,  destructible.    For 
33 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

inexhaustible  sustenance,  protection,  and  sup 
ply  he  uses  as  his  symbols  trivial  things,  like 
tables  and  beds  and  walls  and  floors,  and  food 
to  eat  and  money  to  spend.  In  the  very  act 
of  yearning  for  the  actual  he  contents  him 
self  with  a  falsification,  just  as  a  child  who 
grasps  at  the  moon  can  be  satisfied  with  a 
tinseled  toy.  Sight,  which  is  an  attribute 
of  Infinite  Intelligence,  he  locates  in  a  blind 
material  physique;  and,  even  while  ad 
mitting  his  mistake,  he  goes  on  making  it." 

Berkeley  Noone  endeavored  to  show  the 
mortal  impulse  as  less  culpable  than  it  was 
represented. 

"And  yet  we  Men  of  Dust,  as  you  call 
us,  admit  that  we  see  with  the  intelligence. 
We  don't  merely  speak  of  seeing  with  the 
eye.  One  of  our  commonest  expressions  is, 
I  see! — as  applied  to  comprehension." 

"Which  goes  to  prove  what  I've  been 
telling  you.  The  Man  of  Dust  is  rarely 
without  some  gleam  of  true  understanding. 
It  has  to  be  remembered  that  the  mist 
which,  as  mortals  saw  for  themselves  in 
the  book  of  Genesis,  went  up  from  the 
earth  is  less  dense  in  some  places  than  it 
is  in  others;  that  the  deep  sleep  which  fell 
on  Adam  is  a  restless  sleep.  At  times  the 

Man   of    Dust   is   haunted   by   nightmare; 
34 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

he  exists  in  a  delirium  of  terror  and  pain. 
At  times  he  is  so  nearly  awake  as  to  catch 
a  glimpse  of  the  blissful  and  peaceful  reality. 
In  his  music,  for  instance,  and  all  his  arts; 
hi  goodness  and  all  high  thoughts;  hi  love 
and  compassion,  and  learning  and  knowledge, 
and  every  honest  pursuit,  he  sees  some  ray 
of  that  reality  which  you're  beginning  to 
perceive  as  you  never  did  before;  and  he 
strains  toward  it." 

"So  that  when  a  man  says  I  see! — in  the 
sense  that  he  understands — he  puts  himself 
on  a  higher  plane  than  when  he  merely  tells 
himself  he  sees  with  the  physical  senses." 

"You  must  be  getting  that  conviction  for 
yourself.  It  must  be  growing  plainer  to  you 
that  mortal  intelligence  is  less  deceptive  than 
the  mortal  senses.  The  mortal  eye,  like 
everything  else  that  is  made  of  Dust,  is  poorly 
adapted  to  its  purposes.  Assuming  that  it 
ever  sees  more  than  an  inverted  reflection, 
its  range  is  still  limited;  and  within  that 
range  it  is  subject  to  a  thousand  errors  and 
innrmities.  The  mortal  intelligence,  being 
nearer  akin  to  actual  Intelligence,  is  less 
liable  to  error,  even  though  it  errs.  Man 
only  sees  when  he  sees  altogether  through  the 
mind;  and  it  is  in  mind  only  that  I  shall  see 

you  and  you  will  see  me." 
35 


CHAPTER  V 

TTERKELEY  NOONE  withdrew  from  com- 
U  munication  with  his  invisible  companion 
in  order  to  assimilate  some  of  these  ideas. 
In  his  effort  to  cling  to  his  faculties,  as  he 
called  it,  he  put  it  plainly  to  himself  that  he 
was  in  a  state  betwixt  reality  and  dream 
land.  The  very  clarity  of  his  mind  was  like 
that  produced  by  some  mighty  stimulant.  It 
was  one  of  the  phases  of  dying  he  had  heard 
about;  but  it  was  at  least  a  pleasant  phase, 
putting  the  evil  moment  a  little  further  off. 
Meantime  he  watched  his  wife  and  children 
with  renewed  perplexity. 

It  puzzled  him  that,  while  he  was  lying 
at  the  very  point  of  death,  they  should 
apparently  be  going  and  coming  on  errands 
not  directly  connected  with  himself. 

A  few  minutes  ago  his  wife  was  holding 
his  right  hand  and  Phil  his  left. 

Each  of  the  others  was  watching  him, 
as  he  was  watching  them,  with  eyes  of 
piteous  farewell.  He  might  have  supposed 
that,  for  the  rest  of  the  time  he  stayed 

36 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

with  them,  they  would  have  no  other  pre 
occupation. 

But  now  they  seemed  bent  on  obeying 
some  lord  who  was  not  death.  Moreover, 
in  the  "  Light  of  the  World,"  they  continued 
to  undergo  a  transfiguration  he  could  neither 
describe  nor  define.  They  were  themselves 
but  themselves  glorified.  Emily  was  again 
the  dryad  of  their  youthful  days;  but  a 
dryad  with  ways  of  light  and  tenderness  he 
had  never  known  her  to  possess.  Each  of  the 
children  was  bathed  in  the  same  beautifying 
radiance.  He  knew  them — and  yet  he  didn't 
know  them.  All  hecould  affirm  of  them  exactly 
was  that  his  doubts  and  worryings  and  dis 
appointments  on  account  of  them  were  past. 
He  felt  what  Angel  had  just  been  telling 
him,  that  he  was  waking  from  some  troubled 
dream  on  their  behalf.  The  boys  were  not 
sordid;  Beatrice  was  not  wilful;  Constantia 
was  not  a  renegade  to  her  God.  That  he 
should  ever  have  thought  so  began  to  seem 
to  him  incomprehensible. 

Angel  spoke,  as  if  there  had  been  no 
interruption: 

"It's  because  mortals  never  see  each  other, 

except  as  wearing  grotesque  masks,  behind 

which    the    true    and   normal   features  are 

hidden.     The  Dream  Man  may  catch  the 

37 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

shadow  of  God's  Man;  but  he  never  beholds 
him  as  he  is.  He  invents  another  Dream 
Man.  The  Dream  Man  is  to  God's  Man  no 
more  than  the  reflection  in  the  hollow  of  a 
silver  spoon  to  the  face  it  is  supposed  to 
give  back." 

Once  more  Berkeley  Noone  was  quick  to 
seize  a  point  that  made  for  mortal  reality: 

"But  there  is  a  face  there." 

"Oh,  yes;  there  is  a  face  there.  The  Man 
of  Dust  never  creates  anything.  He  only 
takes  what  God  has  created  and  distorts  it. 
His  senses  have  about  the  same  degree  of 
accuracy  as  wind-swept  water,  which  shows 
the  objects  standing  above  it  not  only  upside 
down  but  quivering,  broken — a  succession  of 
shadows  that  appear  and  disappear  and  re 
appear,  and  have  no  stability." 

"But  your  Man  of  Dust  has  intelligence; 
he  has  power.  Look  at  his  development 
through  the  ages;  look  at  his  discoveries, 
his  inventions,  his  mastery  of  the  elements." 

"You  mean  that  he  has  his  approaches  to 
actuality.  True!  There  are  spots  where  he 
so  penetrates  the  mist  that  it  grows  very 
thin.  His  great  advances  are  in  the  direction 
of  truth.  His  use  of  steam,  of  electricity, 
of  the  Hertzian  waves,  brings  him  nearer  to 
things  as  they  are;  and  so  nearer  to  God. 

38 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

It's  one  of  his  limitations  that  he  can  only 
think  of  coming  nearer  to  God  ethically. 
He  sees  God  in  His  relation  to  moral  right 
and  wrong,  and  he  hardly  ever  sees  Him  in 
any  other  way.  He  practically  never  takes 
the  telephone,  for  instance,  or  the  motor-car, 
as  his  demonstration  of  God's  power.  He 
looks  upon  them  as  his  own  discoveries  or 
inventions,  having  nothing  to  do  with  God; 
and  so  directs  his  advantages  not  to  good 
ends  but  to  evil." 

While  Berkeley  Noone  was  considering  a 
response  to  this,  Angel's  voice,  after  a  brief 
pause,  went  on : 

"How  are  the  Children  of  Dust  making 
use  of  the  knowledge  they've  gained  during 
the  last  fifty  years  of  their  counting?  Is  it 
to  help  one  another?  Is  it  to  benefit  them 
selves?  Is  it  to  make  the  world  happier,  or 
more  peaceful,  or  more  prosperous?  Haven't 
they  taken  all  their  new  resources,  all  their 
increased  facilities,  all  their  approximations 
to  Truth,  all  their  approaches  to  God — the 
things  which  belonged  to  their  peace,  as 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  called  them — and  made 
them  instruments  of  mutual  destruction? 
Aren't  they  straining  their  ingenuity  to 
devise  undreamed-of  methods  for  doing  one 
another  harm? 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

"You  think  me  harsh  toward  them;  but 
can  you  consider  for  a  moment  their  colossal 
stupidity  and  not  be  harsh?  Isn't  it  fair  to 
say  of  the  carnal  mind  that  its  promptest 
use  of  a  blessing  is  to  turn  it  into  a  curse?  Is 
there  any  good  thing  that  it  has  not,  at  one 
time  or  another,  so  perverted  that  it  becomes 
difficult  to  see  what  useful  end  it  was  meant 
to  serve?  Isn't  it  a  fact  that  the  most 
beautiful  things  in  mortal  existence — the  love 
of  husband  and  wife,  for  instance,  or  the 
affection  of  parent  and  child — are  so  wrested 
by  the  carnal  mind  from  the  purposes  for 
which  they  were  ordained  that  they  become 
the  causes  of  misery?" 

Berkeley  Noone  having  reluctantly  ad 
mitted  this,  the  quiet  voice  pursued  its  line 
of  reasoning: 

"The  best  that  Can  be  said  of  the  carnal 
point  of  view  is  that  it  doesn't  last.  The  Man 
of  Dust  is  fully  aware  that  he  has  only  a  brief 
day.  From  the  beginning  he  foresees  his 
end.  Dust  he  is,  and  to  Dust  he  must  return. 
He  can  pervert  the  facts  for  no  more  than 
threescore  years  and  ten,  or  fourscore  years 
— or  a  hundred  years  at  most.  Knowing 
that,  he  keeps  his  worst  error  in  reserve." 

"And  his  worst  error  is— 

"The  invention  of  death." 
40 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

"Ah,  but  is  death  an  invention?  Isn't  it 
the  most  real  of  all  realities?  Here  am  I,  a 
dying  man — 

"  Every  thing  is  real  to  which  we  lend 
reality.  It  has  just  the  reality  we  lend  to  it. 
The  Man  of  Dust  persuades  himself  that 
his  return  to  his  natural  nothingness  is  the 
most  fearful  form  of  destruction.  He  fright 
ens  his  children  into  the  belief  that,  with  the 
passing  of  delusion,  something  vital  in  them 
ends.  He  calls  into  existence  a  hundred 
bogies — a  future  life,  another  world,  a  hades, 
a  purgatory,  a  hell.  Even  of  a  heaven  he 
turns  the  lofty  spiritual  imagery  of  John,  in 
the  Revelation,  into  a  tedious,  useless  mate 
riality.  He  stops  at  nothing  that  will  add 
terror  to  man's  blessed  waking  from  his 
night  of  phantasms.  You  yourself  were 
probably  not  free  from  some  alarms,  any 
more  than  I." 

The  thought  that  had  been  forming  in 
Berkeley  Noone's  mind  now  burst  from  him 
with  extreme  intensity  of  awe: 

"But  am  I— am  I— dead?" 

Again  there  was  that  dancing  of  the 
radiance  which  might  have  represented 
laughter. 

"How  can  you  be  dead  when  there  is  no 

death?    Do  you  think  yourself  dead?" 
41 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

4ft 

He  sought  another  way  of  putting  it: 

"Then — then — has  the  great  change  taken 
place?" 

"There's  been  no  great  change  to  take 
place — for  you.  All  your  life  you've  been 
doing  your  best  to  throw  off  mortality;  and 
now  you're  succeeding.  That's  all!  As  for 
a  great  change — well,  that's  for  those  who 
still  remain  in  the  mortal  state.  They  are 
saying  you're  dead;  but  you  best  know 
whether  you  are  or  not." 

In  the  enlarged  consciousness,  amaze 
ment  struggled  with  relief.  It  was  the  latter 
that  triumphed  as  he  asked,  incredulously: 

"But  is  it— is  it— over?" 

"Haven't  you  been  looking  for  a  shock, 
when  life,  as  we  know  it,  has  nothing  but 
sweet  and  gentle  transitions?" 

Berkeley  Noone  was  still  unable  to  con 
vince  himself. 

"But  how  can  I  be" — unable  to  find  any 
other,  he  used  the  word  again — "how  can  I 
be  dead  when  I'm  still  in  my  room,  with  my 
family?" 

"You  mean  that  you  haven't  fully  aban 
doned  your  mortal  point  of  view.  That  will 
come  by  degrees.  Even  as  it  is,  you  see 
some  things  differently,  don't  you?" 

This  could  not  be  denied.     As  Berkeley 

42 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

Noone  looked  about  him — if  looking  was 
the  word — he  began  to  note  a  transmutation 
of  all  the  things  with  which  he  had  been 
familiar.  It  was  true  of  them,  as  of  the 
members  of  his  family,  that  they  were  the 
same,  yet  not  the  same.  If  he  could  have 
found  words  to  describe  his  new  perceptions 
he  would  have  said  that  he  was  getting  to 
the  inner  essence  of  objects  of  which  he  had 
hitherto  known  but  the  surfaces.  Mortal 
symbols  had,  on  the  whole,  been  well  enough, 
so  far  as  they  went;  they  had  only  been 
inadequate.  They  had  been  inadequate  and, 
as  he  found  himself  able  to  observe,  un 
satisfying.  They  had  been  unsatisfying  be 
cause  they  brought  tremendous  truths  down 
to  the  temporary  or  the  trivial. 

He  found  himself  moving  about  the  well- 
known  chamber.  Everything  was  around 
him  that  he  had  known  of  old;  objects  he 
had  once  possessed  but  had  lost  or  other 
wise  parted  with  seemed  also  to  be  his  again; 
and  yet  each  thing  was  there  with  a  sig 
nificance  he  had  never  supposed  to  be  in 
herent  in  workaday  bits  of  furniture.  He 
had  already  seen  his  bed  melt  into  a  knowl 
edge  of  support;  his  arm-chair  was  now  an 
assurance  of  rest,  with  its  complement  of 
strength. 

43 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

Where  there  had  been  his  bedroom  desk, 
with  papers  and  pens,  and  the  paraphernalia 
of  a  busy  life,  there  was  the  promise  of 
activity.  The  floor  became  a  sense  of  the 
solidity  of  his  new  condition;  and  the  wall 
a  guaranty  of  privacy,  of  independence,  of 
a  place  for  him  as  an  individual  in  an  infinite 
world  of  work. 

Whatever  had  been  matter  he  saw  as 
thought;  but  thought  which,  nevertheless, 
projected  a  new  type  of  objectivity.  The 
rugs  were  thoughts;  the  pictures  were 
thoughts;  each  tiny  trifle,  useful  or  useless, 
as  the  case  might  be,  represented  some 
eternal,  indestructible  idea.  A  few  rows  of 
books,  some  of  which  he  had  not  taken  from 
their  shelves  for  years,  were  a  thronging 
variety  of  thoughts,  glowing,  glorious,  crowd 
ing  one  another,  and  yet  making  room  for 
one  another,  like  jewels  in  a  treasury  or 
flowers  in  a  field. 

It  was  his  bedroom.  He  had  no  doubt  of 
that.  It  was  the  intimate  environment  his 
needs  and  tastes  had  created,  and  which 
expressed  him.  But  it  was  to  be  his  forever. 
It  was  not  a  spot  he  had  been  allowed  to 
love  and  permitted  to  rest  in,  and  from 
which  he  was  to  be  torn  away.  There  had 
been  no  such  futility  to  life;  no  such  lack  of 

44 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

purpose  in  its  development.  What  he  had 
gathered  he  was  to  keep;  what  he  had  cared 
for  he  was  to  continue  to  enjoy.  The  dear 
familiar  things  that  the  Man  of  Dust  had 
told  him  could  be  his  but  for  a  little  while 
were  to  abide  with  him — not  only  as  the 
medium  through  which  his  spirit  had  worked 
outward,  but  as  an  earnest  of  security. 

He  could  hardly  tell  by  what  means  he 
apprehended  this,  or  whether  the  physical 
senses  were  still  at  his  command  or  not.  He 
could  not  have  said  whether  sight  and  hear 
ing  had  become  amplified,  or  whether  they 
had  yielded  to  some  higher  method  of  per 
ception.  He  was  like  a  new-born  child,  so 
abundantly  endowed  with  gifts  that  as  yet 
he  is  incapable  of  appraising  any  one  of  them. 
He  could  only  perceive — and  enj  oy .  He  could 
only  enjoy — and  delight  in  the  knowledge 
that  he  was  beyond  the  range  of  vicissitude. 

Love  and  its  blessings  were  not  to  be 
snatched  away  from  him.  The  past,  with 
its  ties  and  its  kindly,  simple  associations, 
had  not  been  lived  through  in  vain.  He 
was  not  to  be  wrenched  from  them  abruptly, 
or  sent  to  strange  spiritual  countries,  where 
even  the  highest  pleasures  would  be  alien. 
He  was  merely  living  on;  living  on  with 
heightened  powers,  doubtless,  and  with  a 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

more  exact  valuation  of  men  and  things — 
but  living  on. 

It  ceased  to  be  a  question  in  his  mind  as 
to  whether  he  was  still  within  his  room  or 
not,  because  space,  as  he  had  known  it,  no 
longer  had  significance.  Words  like  ' '  where  " 
and  "when"  began  to  give  up  their  meaning. 
That  which  was  vital  to  the  past  being  his 
forever,  conditions  of  time  and  place  did 
not  arise.  All  the  taxed  and  tired  recesses 
of  his  being,  so  worn  with  the  struggle 
against  chance  and  change  and  mortal  fear, 
could  rest. 

"After  all,"  Angel  answered  to  these  re 
flections,  "rest  is  humanity's  primary  crav 
ing.  It  asserts  itself  above  all  demands  for 
joy  or  power.  Just  as  the  infant's  capacity 
for  sleep  is  beyond  any  other  of  its  functions, 
so  to  those  emerging  from  mortality  the 
mere  knowledge  of  safety  is  a  reason  for 
taking  that  perfect,  delicious  repose  which 
the  Man  of  Dust  never  permits  to  himself 
or  to  his  children.  It  isn't  sleep,  for  the 
reason  that  the  true  mind  never  has  to 
relax.  But  not  to  have  to  be  afraid  any 
more!  .  .  .  Never  again  to  have  to  worry 
or  be  anxious,  or  to  fret  oneself!  ...  He 
who  comes  where  at  last  he  sees  this  finds 
nothing  so  blissful  as  just  to  rest  and  rejoice." 

46 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

So  Berkeley  Noone  rejoiced  and  rested. 
It  was  occupation  enough,  it  was  happiness 
enough,  to  be  getting  the  true  meaning  of 
his  past.  The  knowledge  that  life  was  not 
the  fleeting  thing  it  had  always  been  de 
scribed  to  him,  that  it  had  everlasting  val 
ues,  was  in  itself  a  satisfaction  of  which  his 
spirit  took  long  draughts.  All  that  was  good 
and  useful  and  honest  and  well-intentioned 
remained  as  a  perpetual  inheritance.  He 
returned  to  the  fact  again  and  again.  There 
was  only  one  life,  as  Angel  had  told  him; 
there  was  only  one  world.  No  sudden 
transplanting  made  a  shadow  of  the  one, 
and  no  violent  breaking-off  a  monstrosity 
of  the  other.  He  lived  and  saw;  he  lived 
and  knew;  he  saw  and  knew  and  lived.  He 
lived  with  the  old  things  he  had  always 
lived  with,  discovering  only  their  full  uses; 
he  lived  with  the  old  ties,  learning  only 
their  stability  and  permanence;  he  lived 
with  the  old  duties,  perceiving  only  that 
as  he  would  fulfil  them  thenceforth  in 
higher  ways  they  would  lead  to  higher 
issues. 

And  as  he  thought  of  higher  issues  an 
other  question  arose  in  his  mind.  It  was  a 
startling  question : 

"If  I'm  dead,  why  don't  I— see  God?" 

47 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

Angel's  voice  replied,  as  though  the  words 
had  been  actually  spoken: 

"Aren't  you  seeing  Him?" 

"Why,  no!" 

"Why  not?  What  did  you  expect  to 
see?" 

Before  this  simple  inquiry  Berkeley  Noone 
was  dumb.  When  he  tried  to  formulate  his 
hope  it  was  brokenly. 

"I've  always  understood  that — that  I 
should  be  taken  before  the  Great  White 
Throne;  and  that,  high  and  lifted  up— 

"You'd  see  a  supernal  Man,  or  three  su 
pernal  Men,  taking  great  delight  in  an  ador 
ing  chorus  from  a  white-robed  throng?" 
A  pause  preceded  the  next  words,  like  a 
pause  of  reflection.  "'The  letter  killeth, 
but  the  spirit  giveth  life/"  the  unseen  com 
panion  quoted.  "There  have  been  few  for 
whom  John  didn't  write  the  book  of  his 
Revelation  quite  in  vain.  It  has  been  the 
conviction  of  the  Man  of  Dust  that  if  he 
didn't  see  a  reflection  turned  upside  down 
on  the  retina  of  Dust  he  didn't  see  at  all.  He 
has  persuaded  himself  that  he  lives  in  a 
world  where  God  is  invisible,  when,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  even  he,  with  his  Dust  limi 
tations,  is  always  seeing  Him." 

"Oh,  but  I  haven't  been  always  seeing 

48 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

Him/'  Berkeley  Noone  began  to  plead.    "If 
I  had—" 

"You've  been  seeing  Him  and  you  didn't 
know  it.  Go  back  to  what  we  said  as  to 
sight  being  not  the  action  of  a  temporary 
optic  nerve,  but  essentially  the  power  to 
understand.  We  see  God  by  what  we  un 
derstand  of  Him;  we  understand  Him  by 
His  attributes;  and  we  measure  His  attri 
butes  by  their  beauty  and  goodness  and 
practicality.  Wherever  there  has  been  a 
blessing  for  you  to  enjoy,  you've  seen  God. 
Whenever  love  has  cheered  you  or  kind 
ness  helped  you,  you've  seen  God.  In  sun 
rise  and  sunset  and  moonlight  and  starlight, 
and  trees  and  fields  and  harvest  and  flowers 
and  ice  and  snow  and  air,  and  health  and 
beauty,  and  generosity  and  friendship,  and 
all  that  gives  pleasure  to  existence,  you've 
seen  God.  He  hasn't  been  invisible.  There 
is  not  one  world  in  which  God  is  seen  and  an 
other  world  in  which  He  is  not.  There  is  not 
a  life  with  God  and  another  life  away  from 
Him.  There  is  only  one  world,  and  God 
fills  it;  there  is  only  one  life,  to  which  God 
is  All-in-All." 

"And  yet  we  speak  of  the  Unseen — " 
"The  Man  of  Dust  speaks  of  it;  and,  to 
make  him  understand,  it  may  sometimes  be 

49 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

necessary  to  employ  his  terms.  He  has 
other  such  expressions,  too,  in  his  vocabu 
lary.  He  has  a  beyond  the  veil,  and  a 
beyond  the  clouds,  and  a  beyond  the  tomb, 
and  a  dozen  other  misleading  tokens.  But 
there  is  no  Beyond.  There  is  only  a  universal 
Here!  There  is  only  an  ever-present  Now! 
'No  man  hath  ascended  up  to  heaven/' 
Angel  quoted  again,  "'but  He  that  came 
down  from  heaven,  even  the  Son  of  man 
which  is  in  heaven.'  To  the  true  Son  of 
man,  who  is  also  the  true  Son  of  God,  heaven 
is  not  another  world  or  an  afterworld;  it's 
the  only  world.  It's  a  state  of  consciousness 
He  never  leaves  and  of  which  He  never  loses 
the  assurances.  He  has  the  highest  authority 
for  knowing  that  in  it  His  angels  do  always 
behold  the  face  of  His  Father.'  " 

"His  angels — yes;  but  that  doesn't  neces 
sarily  mean  Himself." 

"Doesn't  it?  What  are  angels?  Aren't 
they  messengers?  Aren't  they  messages? 
And  haven't  you  always  been  sending  your 
messages  and  messengers  straight  to  Him? 
In  yearnings  and  prayers  and  aspirations 
and  hopes,  and  a  thousand  other  impulses 
of  your  being,  what  have  you  been  doing 
but  sending  troops  of  your  angels  to  see  His 
face?  Abandon  the  inverted  reflection  on 

50 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

the  mortal  retina  as  a  necessity  for  sight— 
and  you  see  Him  at  once." 

"So  you  would  say  that  in  my  present 
more  accurate  knowledge  of  things  as  they 
are—" 

"You  are  seeing  God  as  youVe  always 
seen  Him,  even  though  not  so  radiantly  as 
now.  What  more  remains  is  not  for  me  to 
say,  since  I  am  doing  only  that  much  my 
self.  All  I  can  affirm  is  what  Jesus  of  Naz 
areth  affirmed,  that  to  know  God  is  eternal 
life,  and  that  they  who  possess  even  the 
rudiments  of  that  knowledge  shall  never 
and  can  never  die.  What  the  end  of  that 
knowledge  shall  be  surpasses  our  capacity 
to  guess  at,  as  God  Himself  surpasses  it. 
For  the  present  we  are  the  inheritors  of  love, 
joy,  and  peace;  and  in  proportion  as  we 
have  them — whatever  the  stage  of  our  prog 
ress  out  of  material  beliefs — we  see  at  least 
the  fringe  of  the  robe  of  Him  whose  qualities 
they  are." 

Thus,  to  Berkeley  Noone  the  Vision  of  God 
began  to  unfold  itself.  He  was  seeing  where 
he  had  supposed  himself  blind;  he  was 
blind  in  ways  in  which  he  thought  he  had 
seen.  Hymns  of  praise  broke  from  him 
spontaneously — not  in  set  phrases,  nor  with 
what  he  had  hitherto  called  melody,  nor 

51 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

with  singing  of  the  voice;  but  in  an  irre 
pressible  gratitude.  That  nothing  of  the 
past  was  wasted  was  the  theme  of  his  ever- 
recurring  song.  To  see  evil  pass  into  noth 
ingness  in  the  degree  to  which  Dust  theories 
were  shaken  off  was  like  emerging  into  sunlit 
air  after  existence  underground.  Once  he 
beheld  the  unity  of  life,  the  unity  of  purpose, 
the  unity  of  good,  his  being  became  incense, 
viol,  and  harp,  and  he  was  ready  to  cast  his 
crown  before  the  Throne,  saying: 

'Thou  art  worthy,  O  Lord,  to  receive 
glory  and  honor  and  power:  for  Thou  hast 
created  all  things,  and  for  Thy  pleasure  they 
are  and  were  created/  " 

And  within  the  vision  of  God  he  saw  his 
wife  and  children — always  busied  in  ways 
he  didn't  understand;  always  occupied  on 
errands  that  had  nothing  to  do  with  him. 
It  was  not  continuously  that  he  saw  them, 
and  it  was  not  near,  and  it  was  not  all  to 
gether.  They  came  to  him  singly,  or  in 
groups,  or  in  glimpses.  Such  communica 
tion  as  he  could  hold  with  them  was 
chiefly  in  a  sense  of  well-being  and  of  mutual 
love. 

"  You'll  come  closer  to  them  by  degrees/' 
he  was  informed  by  his  guide.    "It's  a  mat 
ter  of  perception.    All  things  will  be  possible 
52 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

in  the  measure  in  which  you  free  yourself 
from  mortal  restrictions." 

"But  what  are  they  doing?" 

"They're  about  their  Father's  business, 
as  you  and  I  are." 

The  answer  both  rejoiced  and  troubled 
him. 

"I'm  afraid  they  were  not  —  or  they 
weren't  wholly— 

"When  you  as  a  Dream  Man  saw  them 
as  other  Dream  Men?  No!  But  the  Dream 
Man  always  misinterprets.  The  Children 
of  Dust  see  each  other  as  lying  and  cheating 
and  hating  and  killing,  and  given  over  to 
every  kind  of  wickedness  and  frightfulness. 
That  is  the  inversion  of  what  they  are 
actually  doing  as  the  Children  of  Light. 
What  puzzles  you  is  that,  in  throwing  off 
the  dream,  you  are  seeing  those  who  are 
dear  to  you  not  as  you  supposed  them  to  be, 
but  as  they  are.  Each  one  of  them  is  doing 
his  Father's  business,  positively  and  always, 
no  matter  what  grotesque  or  hideous  per 
version  the  dream  consciousness  may  try  to 
fix  in  him.  In  the  Reality  there  is  no  thwart 
ing  of  the  Almighty,  even  though  mortals 
pride  themselves  on  being  able  to  do  it." 
He  added,  gently  and  yet  joyously,  "Great 

is  the  mystery  of  being!" 
53 


ABRAHAM'S  BOSOM 

"  '  And  great  is  the  mystery  of  godliness/  " 
the  other  quoted,  in  his  turn. 

"And  wonderful  is  it  to  emerge  from 
darkness  and  half  lights  into  the  daylight 
of  the  Sun  of  Righteousness." 

"But  blessed/'  Berkeley  Noone  went  on, 
fervently,  "are  they  who,  in  half  lights  and 
darkness,  are  able  to  see  that  they  shall 
emerge  quietly,  simply,  naturally — and  not 
be  violently  thrust  into  glories  or  terrors 
they  cannot  understand. 

"More  blessed  are  they  who  learn  to  live 
in  God  as  in  the  One  Vast  Certainty— 
which  created  every  one,  and  supplies  every 
one,  and  upholds  every  one,  and  defends 
every  one,  and  loves  every  one;  and  does  it 
all  with  unlimited  intelligence  and  might— 
'to  whom  be  glory  and  dominion  for  ever 
and  ever.7 ' 

1 '  Amen !  and  Amen ! ' ' 


THE   END 


S1 5 


TO  yrianaviviu  M«T 


